She has the measles

MJ24

MJ24

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Joined
26 Apr 2012
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362
Location
West Wales
www.markjohnsonafloat.org.uk
Alas the old girl (35 years) has succumbed to the measles.

I am unsure what the best way forward is.

Don't really want to go to the expense of an full repair job.

Is there anyway I could just stop it getting worse?

Or just aunty foul her and ignore the disease?

measles.jpg

mj
 
No point in burying your head in the sand either, despite the saying that no boat ever sank as a result of osmosis, if you do nothing it will only get worse and become virtually unsaleable.
 
http://www.hshyachts.com/html/oh_no__my_boat_s_got_blisters_.html

Is a good read and says problem is fairly widespread, and suggests monitoring the small blisters annually to see if they get worse. The authors boat has similar, and the measles have not got worse over 9 years.

Whether I bite the bullet and do some repairs myself is advice I want. Least I might just cover the effected areas with epoxy cost to stop any further ingress.

I think the boat has a couple if patches as per the picture, but most of the hull is sound.

Mj
 
We have just gone through the same problem. If you look at this months PBO p46 you can see a couple of photographs. (My wifes thumb is now a celebrity!). After a lot of head scratching and asking around we went for the full treatment done by a professional yard. I'm not saying that that is the correct decision for everyone, but it was ours. The work involved was much greater than we had anticipated when we considered doing it ourselves; I don't think that we could have managed a full repair. One thing I do remember was the surveyor saying very forcibly was that we should not epoxy over problem as it would ony make things worse, rather than contain it. Our boat was lifted, for treatment to begin, on 4th July and has been back in the water for about a week now. Good luck!

Nigel
 
If a smallish area I would be tempted to use a dremel type tool to grind each blister, clean, let dry for the winter and then a final clean and fill 'holes' with expoxy, anifoul, etc and go sailing. When next lifted see what has happened. The other option is it the paint only lifting - I assume that you have checked this?
 
the boat is 35 years old....

how old are you?

I would be tempted to sail on and enjoy your life afloat

leave your children to deal with the problem

I had a problem with a sonata with it

had it peeled and re-epoxied

waste of my money but I guess the bloke who is sailing the boat now is pleased that I had it done

D
 
dylanwinter said:
the boat is 35 years old....

how old are you?

I would be tempted to sail on and enjoy your life afloat

leave your children to deal with the problem

I had a problem with a sonata with it

had it peeled and re-epoxied

waste of my money but I guess the bloke who is sailing the boat now is pleased that I had it done

D
Click to expand...
Exactly. My 34 year old Fulmar has millions of tiny very shallow blisters.I'm monitoring and leaving well alone for now.If I ever feel industrious enough I'll peel and fix but somehow I'm not seeing that happening in the near future.
 
dylanwinter said:
the boat is 35 years old....

how old are you?

I would be tempted to sail on and enjoy your life afloat

leave your children to deal with the problem

I had a problem with a sonata with it

had it peeled and re-epoxied

waste of my money but I guess the bloke who is sailing the boat now is pleased that I had it done

D
Click to expand...

Yes kind of where I an coming from.

I probably only have another fives or so sailing, Age and pocket.

Not particularly banking in its sale for the future pension, but a shame to se it go to the dogs. I suspect she has been like that for a while, and its moored in fresh/brackish water which does not help apparently

Anyway, surveyor booked who hopefully will give me an informed opinion.

Thanks fir opinions

Mj
 
30boat said:
Exactly. My 34 year old Fulmar has millions of tiny very shallow blisters.I'm monitoring and leaving well alone for now.If I ever feel industrious enough I'll peel and fix but somehow I'm not seeing that happening in the near future.
Click to expand...
Nuno

My Fulmar hull has the same problem in places, hence when I bought it I had Mr Osmosis do the survey. My boat does not have osmosis, but Westerly were very bad at mixing gelcoat. They did not allow it to stand to let the small air bubbles rise, they just slopped on two coats, bubbles and all. What you are seeing is small air bubbles that have burst.

I was advised that the hull was within acceptable moisture levels so I removed all the antifouling. In some areas I did fill the large holes with a gel filler and then applied 3 coats of GelShield. Some of the holes were filled using the setting GelShield as it became almost like putty. THe final coat had virtually no holes to be seen, but after 2 coats of hard antifoul, followed by 2 soft antifoul, there were no visible holes at all.

Mr Osmosis advised not to apply the standard 5 coats of GelShield as if there was any problem in the future I would have wasted another £200 on paint. The 3 coats would be just as effective considering the age of the hull and the moisture content.

My advice would be to do as I have done and do not consider peeling the hull.
 
Some good counsel above, some tosh. Small blisters can exist for many years without worsening.
'Let it dry' is asinine re osmosis: the products of osmosis are hygroscopic, so it will never dry unless near-zero humidity. Hence the advise for repeated aggressive washing, to remove hygroscopic compounds.
 
Just sail it until you "retire"; monitor annually; I doupt it if it get any worse; it is a balance between cost and benefit, the cost to rectify will be a lot and the benefits will be unoticed.
 
macd said:
Some good counsel above, some tosh. Small blisters can exist for many years without worsening.
'Let it dry' is asinine re osmosis: the products of osmosis are hygroscopic, so it will never dry unless near-zero humidity. Hence the advise for repeated aggressive washing, to remove hygroscopic compounds.
Click to expand...

Does that mean that time out of the water isn't necessary? And what about epoxy coatings?
 
dylanwinter said:
the boat is 35 years old....

how old are you?

I would be tempted to sail on and enjoy your life afloat

leave your children to deal with the problem

I had a problem with a sonata with it

had it peeled and re-epoxied

waste of my money but I guess the bloke who is sailing the boat now is pleased that I had it done

D
Click to expand...

Roger the bodger strikes again!
 
I don't believe a winter on the hard has any effect on how dry a hull is. As Concerto says if it is a Westerly then it is likely to be inter gelcoats only and not through to the laminate. It is a well known thing.
 
Agree with a lot of the above, It can take years to dry a boat out and even then if its a westerly it wont be 100% because of the weird and wonderful ways they applied the gel, i wouldn't bother peeling it, if you're that worried, grind out the blisters and fill with epoxy filler. Peelings a waste of time and money and is no gaurantee that it wont come back again.
 
My Centaur looked like it was going to sink if I had the audacity to launch it. This was after 4 or 5 years afloat on Windermere but we had exported it to Kip.



I poked a few blisters as I was preparing to antifoul to see if I should be thinking of a more permanent repair. The half dozen i popped smelled of acetic/acrylic so I supposed that they were osmotic but, the bottoms of the holes were flat so it looks like it's restricted to the outer layer of gelcoat so I slapped some antifloul on and went sailing.

This year when it came to antifoul time it didn't look any worse so it got some more Cruiser Uno EU and I went sailing again.



I think I will be doing the same next year.
 
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